Upcoming changes to transit declarations

The changes to the EU customs legislation will bring about phased changes to customs declarations in 2019‒2025. 

Transit declarations, current situation

In Finland transit declarations are submitted in the Customs Clearance Service or via message exchange. 

A transit declaration cannot be submitted in advance.

Currently, transit declarations are submitted with EU’s transition period rules. For example, providing the commodity code is optional, and there can only be one consignment. That is, only one consignor can be entered in the transit declaration.

Transit declarations, upcoming changes

Transit declarations can be submitted in advance as of 5 October 2024. A declaration submitted in advance (D declaration) can be submitted 30 days before the goods are presented to Customs. A presentation notification must be submitted when presenting the goods to Customs.

The transition period rules will be changed to the final rules as of 21 January 2025. Examples of how declaring information changes when the final rules are applied:

• Providing a commodity code at a level of six digits is mandatory.
• There can be 99 house consignment, when during the transition period there could only be 1.
• The consignor and the consignee can be provided at house level, when during the transition period they could only be provided at the level of the entire consignment. So in the future, one declaration can have several consignors instead of one; however, no more than 99. 
• There is no longer a need to enter consignees at goods item level if they are provided at house level. 

Providing safety and security data in transit declarations will change as planned in 2025.